Unclassified problem on the 2009 Honda Accord
18 crashes 2 fires 19 injuries 1 death 40 of the 90 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 46 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2009 Honda Accord report unclassified problem at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 miles, from 46 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 62nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 22,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 137,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 114,894 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
17% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22,500 miles | 60,250 miles | 84,000 miles | 105,966 miles | 137,394 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 18 a crash, 2 a fire, 19 an injury and 1 a fatality are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 231; the 2009 has 90. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Tl*the contact owns a 2009 (na) honda accord. When the air conditioner is activated, the headlights move up and down intermittently. The lights also dim and flicker without warning. The contact took the vehicle to the dealer and they stated that all the 2009 accords performed in that manner. The failure mileage was 827. Updated 10/16/08. *lj updated 10/17/08. *jb
No crash yet, but crash likely. 2009 honda accord has dim head lights that create a black blanket in front of driver and narrows on any dip in road. Visibility very poor, and the black blanket effect in front of you moves up and down because car bounces alot due to stiff suspension with a wheel system that is too big for car , thus creating the need for a low profile tire that causes car to bounce alot. The driver is very likely to wreck under such circumstances. The only alternative is to run with your bright lights on and then blind fellow oncoming traffic. Honda should recall these cars, and consumers should be warned. Dealer states light cannot be adjusted due to government regulation, but they were going to adjust my lights at first, but I was told not to turn bright lights on so as not to blind oncoming traffic. The salesman told me that I was tenth person to bring car in to be adjusted. I became angry that I might be at fault if a wreck occurred , and suggested that they were doing something wrong if government said lights should be one way, but after car bought, light adjusted another way. They then refused to adjust my…
2009 honda accord 4 cyl 1) car whines at 1300 rpms. Very annoying. Honda says that all of them whine and that it is normal. It sounds like a very cheap car instead of a high end honda accord. 2) at low sped and I make a sharp turn, the power steering pulsates. Honda garage said it has a single belt system and that they all persistent like that and it is normal. *tr
Also reported on the 2009 Honda Accord
Other brake problem
Other engine problem
Excessive oil consumption
Airbag inflator rupture
Other body or interior problem
Premature brake pad or rotor wear
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 90 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 90 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does unclassified problem happen on the 2009 Honda Accord?
Across 46 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 60,000 miles and a quarter after 105,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2009 Honda Accord?
90 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.8 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed